


Lights Coming Up Ahead

by actualPrincess



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Car Accidents, Implied Relationships, Lonely Dave Strider, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 07:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14666439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualPrincess/pseuds/actualPrincess
Summary: Dave's had a bug out bag since he was 16, now it's the only solid thing he has left in the world. A duffle bag and a motorcycle isn't a lot, but neither is a lone wolf who's lost 7 years to the open road. Still, a duffle bag tells a story, and every story needs a hero. Even if that hero is a human from Washington with a knack for wolves.





	Lights Coming Up Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on an rp I have with a friend and was written as a character study for Dave. It's lonely until the end, but I hope it inspires someone the way it inspires me.

Dave lives on the road. It feels like he’s only ever lived on the road. His home is a montage of cheap motel rooms and run down towns. Home is what Dave carries in a duffel bag and can attach to his motorcycle. Of course Dave had a home at one point but circumstances change when kids get older. Wolf families just sort of worked like that. And Striders were pretty consistent about passing down the more recessive “alpha gene” which meant any child deemed a threat to dad’s status as alpha was kicked out by the time they were 18. Dave was about 25 now, and had condensed life on the road down to an art.

Item: phone charger

It’s the first thing Dave does when he gets to his room. His phone is plugged into the socket next to the bed, every now and then the outlet sparks and Dave will sit quietly on the worn comforter and stare a hole through the stain on the wall across from him. Life is a series of small towns and mediocre boasts. Every small town —and it has to be a small town if it’s near a full moon— has something they boast about. Most are sleepy but every one Dave’s stopped in has had the best pie, or the freshest air. Dave reads the pamphlets. He checks his bank account, and then he indulges the town in whatever they claim to have. It’s usually disappointing.

Nothing compares to the adrenaline of the full moon.

Item: wet wipes

There’s blood on Dave’s face from last night, but it’s early and washing his face takes too much effort. One pass with a baby wipe cleans up enough so that he can collapse on the spring poked mattress and sleep.

Missing posters for a local cat are being stapled to telephone polls when Dave stops his bike in front of a local diner. He’s starving. Shifting between human and wolf takes up more calories than he was able to supply last night. Sacrifices have to be made when there’s no local wildlife. Wolves stand out when the only thing for miles is corn. Dave develops a special hatred for the Midwest after that.

Item: shirt (3)

There’s a white, a black, and an old band shirt stuffed in Dave’s bag. He rotates them. Mainly the black and white ones, but some days he feels sentimental and wears the band tee. It’s easier to manage wardrobe when there isn’t one. Dave doesn’t dress memorably. The only thing of note has always been a leather jacket. Wolves burn so hot it’s all he needs when winter rolls around. It’s better to travel light.

Still there’s not much for him to wear when he has to stop at a laundromat. His spare pair of pants and his jacket. The shirts are worn to an unnatural level of comfort. Cotton isn’t meant to last forever, but Dave means to make it.

Item: Nintendo DS (charger included)

He had to upgrade to a 3ds recently. The cartridge games were taking up too much space. One SD card and some downloads later Dave has every game he could have wanted. It’s a sad day standing at a rundown GameStop and trading everything in. Dave learned long ago that attachments weren’t meant for the road.

That night the motel room feels a bit warmer. New adventures with old friends brighten any mood. Dave starts each game anew and is reintroduced to all his best friends. He knows their scripts backwards and forwards. Imaginary attachments. Wolves aren’t meant to run alone.

Item: notebook and pen

There’s a date and location on every page. Sometimes one on every line, if there’s nothing to note. Some dates are circles in red, the full moon. Some cities are underlined, particularly terrible to visit. Tucked inside the cover is a map, a red line tracing highways and backroads. Everywhere Dave’s ever been. It’s been a long 7 years. This was only supposed to be for a little while.

He’s in Kentucky, writing long passages in small neat print. This town has been insufferably...something. Dave isn’t sure whether they’re nice or whether they know something he doesn’t. He was so careful to stay out of defined territories. He must have wandered into another supernatural, something no one has noted. He leaves before checkout. The dead eyes of smiling citizens gather in the back of him mind as he revs the gas on his motorcycle.

Item: pants

Motorcycle wrecks are never pretty. It’s Dave’s belief that double checking blind spots on the highway should be second nature. Unfortunately he’s not in a position to yell at the driver of the sedan that just ran him off the highway. From Dave’s assessment he’s got a couple broken ribs and a broken leg. The back of his pants are ripped to shreds from skidding and he’s got a nasty case of road rash on his ass. His helmet’s in bad shape but he doesn’t have a concussion. Some things can’t be scraped off the pavement. The sedan had screeched to a halt on the highway shoulder next to him when the collision happened. The back of the car sporting a Dave sized dent. The fear in the other driver’s eyes as Dave stands on a broken leg in the wreckage and his bones pop themselves back into place is almost worth the loss of his bike.

By the time the police get there Dave’s skin has knit itself back together and his leg has set itself. The officer is happy to see Dave’s not dead, the paramedics look disappointed. The other driver’s statement of Dave “standing there like the terminator” makes him laugh, a deep throaty chuckle. He’s not used to using his voice on the road. An officer offers him a cigarette, and the rumbling gravel of disuse in Dave’s voice when he says he’s never smoked makes the officer suspicious but not enough to say anything.

Insurance and a ride from the still distraught sedan driver get Dave back on the road with a new bike in a matter of hours. At the next town Dave’s forced to buy a new pair of emergency pants. He’s going to miss his favorite jeans.

Item: knife

Dave’s fairly good about avoiding hostile territories. A lone alpha wandering into pack territory is always a gamble and most people air on the side of caution.

The receptionist at this motel sniffs the air when Dave walks in. That night he sleeps lightly, a hand on the knife under his pillow.

Folks stare when Dave gets the hell out of dodge the next morning. He’d figured on being settled down by now.

Item: maps

Dave sits on the side of the highway, a map of Iowa spread out over his legs. His helmet sits on the bike next to him, notebook and red pen on the grass to his left. There’s a full moon in a week and a half. He needs to find somewhere with woods. The northwest coast seemed like a good plan before he got lost in a sea of cornfields. A car pulls up next to where Dave’s parked himself. The passenger side window rolls down and Dave looks up briefly in acknowledgment.

“You lost?” The driver asks. Dave snorts and nearly gets whiplash looking up. The woman in the passenger seat is a wolf. There’s a wide eyed fear in her eyes at Dave’s easy smile. Dave walks over the the car and holds his map out.

“Just need back to the interstate.” He tries to sound friendly, the woman’s hands ball in her lap anyway. The man smells human. This is interesting, considering the woman appears to be pregnant. She hasn’t told him about their affliction then. The driver reaches over and traces his finger over the roads on the map, giving directions while his partner tries to keep the unease of an unfamiliar alpha at bay.

There is something alarming to all pack wolves that the atmosphere of authority given off by unfamiliar alpha wolves sours from calming to subjugating when they’ve been claimed. Dave doesn’t stay with the couple long enough to exchange further pleasantries. He has his information so he goes back to his bike and packs up before getting back on the road.

Lycanthropy is genetic, the father will find out soon enough.

Item: stuffed bird

There aren’t many things that dave has from his childhood. He’d had his “go bag” ready for weeks before his father picked a fight and his mother pushed him out of the house. This was the only thing he’d felt was important enough to make space for. Dirk had a little wind up bug, Dave had a floppy black bird. The fluff on it is worn to velvet and there were a few patches on the wings, but Dave has had it since he was a pup. It reminded him to call his mom every once in a while. Never much more than to tell her he’s still alive and on the road. Staying to answer her questions just makes him sad.

If the night is bad, as they sometimes are when you’re part of a species that was never meant to be alone this long, Dave sleeps with the bird clutched to his chest. 

Items: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant

Dave cracks open the ziplock bag he keeps his toiletries in. Another motel, another shitty bathroom. Checkout is in a few hours but Dave always gets on the road early. It’s better to leave before things get busy. He brushes his teeth and shaves with the knife in his bag. Say what you will about witches, when you ask for a knife that doesn’t rust or dull they give it to you. Then again he’d had to spend a full moon with them so they could trim some fur and claws as payment. Dealing with supernaturals is always tedious.

After the normal person routine is finished Dave takes a moment to examine himself in the mirror. There’s less than a week until the full moon. He’s been having to shave more often. The bags under his eyes are worse. His main concern is the way his irises are starting to eat away at the whites of his eyes. Fifty/fifty after the first shift whether you came out with human eyes. Dave wasn’t one of the lucky ones. Even normally his eyes are a little too red and a little too animalistic.

Dave slips on his shades as he packs up. The man who checks him out doesn’t make eye contact. Then again, Dave didn’t bother saying anything as he left, just hitched his duffle bag higher and closed the lobby door behind him.

Item: socks

There’s about a weeks worth of socks in Dave’s bag at any given moment. They take up the second most amount of space. Clothing takes up a lot of space no matter what.

He's in Washington. Just a few days from the full moon. There’s a large forest and camping ground just outside of town. And the air here is clearer than Dave remembers air ever being. It wouldn’t be a bad place to settle down. Except for that female wolf he’d seen when he first got here. She’d been keeping tabs on him for a while but he supposed she’d run off by now. This wasn’t any claimed territory Dave knew of, probably just an unlucky turned wolf. Her blonde hair reminded him of his sisters'. It also reminds Dave to call his mom, but it’s so close to the moon that he doesn’t bother. He’d been planning on staying in town through the moon. It’s the longest stretch of time he’d spent anywhere for a few years now.

There’s time to go to a laundromat and wash everything. There’s time to get acquainted with the local shops. There’s a diner in town Dave likes. The whole place makes him feel lonely. He spends a day in the local library playing on his DS and being around people in a casual sort of way.

The night of the moon he goes to the diner to fill up before the shift and a pretty boy sits down across from him. He smells like spice and sunshine and Dave thinks he could definitely stay here with this pretty boy. This boy who smells and acts like a wolf but is so painfully human. Dave thinks back to the couple who gave him directions and understands the fear that she-wolf must have felt in a distant way. His name is John and Dave offers him the same easy smile he gives people he thinks need one.

Item: boxers

Dave stares down at the empty drawer he’s managed to fit all his worldly possessions in. His wallet and keys sit on the top of the wardrobe, but he just has the one drawer open. He’s not used to unpacking. He’s not really used to talking either but this pack talks more than he’d thought possible. He’s lying to try and convince himself that he couldn’t cry with happiness at having a pack again. Wolves were never meant to be solitary. Even a ragtag bunch of turned is better than nothing.

John seems to have a knack for wolves. Everything about this house feels immediately like Home, from the rich meaty food to the blanket nests positioned throughout the living room. Rose put him up in John’s room. Part of Dave is glad that he has someone to spend the night with, the night after the full moon is never a good one. Most of him knows that John will probably only tolerate his presence tonight. Dave’s been alone on the road for 7 years he’s used to imaginary attachments, sleeping alone.

He nearly jumps when Rose appears in the doorway. People. He lives with people now. That was the deal. Rose says something about when she saw him in town at the start of the week. Dave smiles and closes the drawer before picking Rose up and tossing her over his shoulder.

“If you thought I was cool then wait ‘till you actually get to know me.” Dave says. His voice is a little smoother around the edges, still worn but warmer.

“I believe I said ‘lame’.” Rose says, her elbows dig into Dave’s back from the way she’s resting her chin in her hands. It’s a sort of dull pain that only another person could inflict. Dave catches John’s eye as he carries Rose down the hall and shoots him an easy smile, the kind people give pretty boys who give lonely wolves homes.


End file.
